'Dew of Hermon', is taken from a line in Psalm 133. The writer of that ancient song enthused about how good it is when people live together in unity,and compares it poetically to the dew of Hermon descending upon the mountains of Zion. In that spirit it is hoped these scribblings will be more refreshing mountain dew, than obscurantist valley fog, where a weary Pilgrim might be refreshed and replenished for the journey ahead.

Sunday, 17 March 2013

APOSTLE TO IRELAND

THE REAL PATRICK

From all that can be learned of him (Patrick), there never was a nobler
Christian missionary.... He went to Ireland from love to Christ, and
love to the souls of men.... Strange that a people who owed Rome nothing
in connection with their conversion to Christ, and who long struggled
against her pretensions, should be now ranked among her most devoted
adherents.

THE heroic figure of Patrick, taken captive as a
boy into slavery, stands out as a creator of civilization. He was not
only an architect of European society and the father of Irish
Christianity, but he raised up a standard against spiritual wolves
entering the fold in sheep’s clothing. So much legend and fiction has
been written about him that one is almost led to believe that there were
two individuals — the real Patrick and the fictitious Patrick. The
statement may come as a surprise to many, yet it is a fact that the
actual Patrick belonged to the Church in the Wilderness. He should not
be placed where certain historians seem determined to assign him. The
facts presented in the following pages will no doubt be a revelation to
many who, misled by wrong representations, have not realized of what
church Patrick was a child and an apostle. As will be shown later, he
was of that early church which was brought to Ireland from Syria. He
was in no way connected with the type of Christianity which developed in
Italy and which was ever at war with the church organized by Patrick.

Patrick belongs to the Celtic race, of which the Britons of England, as
well as the Scotch and Irish, are a part. The vivacity of the Celtic
temperament is equaled by noble courage under danger and by a deep love
for learning. The Celts, like the Germans, possess a profound religious
fervor which makes them devoted to the faith of their choice. This race
once extended all the way from Scythia to Ireland. The Celts are
descended from Gomer, the grandson of Noah, from whom they obtained
through the centuries the name of the Cimmerians. In fact, the Welsh
today call themselves Cymry.

Three countries, Britain, Ireland,
and France, are claimed by different writers to be the fatherland of
Patrick. The weight of evidence plainly indicates that his birthplace
was in that kingdom of Strathclyde, inhabited and controlled by the
ancient Britons, which lay immediately northwest of England. Rome had
divided the island into five provinces, and, in addition, recognized
the Strathclyde kingdom. It was then customary to speak of these
divisions as “the Britains.” To ten of the superior cities of these
Britains, the Roman senate had extended the fight of citizenship. As
his parents resided in one of these ten cities, Patrick in all
probability, like Paul, was born a Roman citizen. He was born about A.D.
360.

Fortunately, two of Patrick’s writings, his Confession
and the Letter against Coroticus, a near-by British king, survive and
may be found readily. In the Letter Patrick tells how he surrendered his
high privileges to become a slave for Christ. Of his faith and his
dedication to God, he says:

"I was a free man according to the
flesh. I was born of a father who was a decurion. For I sold my nobility
for the good of others, and I do not blush or grieve about it. Finally,
I am a servant in Christ delivered to a foreign nation on account of
the unspeakable glory of an everlasting life which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord.”

Of the two writings, namely, the Confession, and the Letter, Sir William Betham writes:

"In them will be found no arrogant presumption, no spiritual pride, no
pretension to superior sanctity, no maledictions of magi, or rivers,
because his followers were drowned in them, no veneration for, or
adoration of, relics, no consecrated staffs, or donations of his teeth
for relics, which occur so frequently in the lives and also in the
collections of Tirechan, referring to Palladius, not to Patrick.”

At the age of sixteen, Patrick was carried captive to Ireland by
freebooters who evidently had sailed up the Clyde River or landed on the
near-by coast. Of this he writes in this Confession:

I,
Patrick, a sinner, the rudest and least of all the faithful, and most
contemptible to great numbers, had Calpurnius for my father, a deacon,
son of the late Potitus, the presbyter, who dwelt in the village of
Banavan, Tiberniae, for he had a small farm at hand with the place where
I was captured. I was then almost sixteen years of age. I did not know
the true God; and was taken to Ireland in captivity with many thousand
men in accordance with our deserts, because we walked at a distance from
God and did not observe His commandments.”

It can be noticed
in this statement that the grandfather of Patrick was a presbyter, which
indicated that he held an office in the church equal to that of bishop
in the papal meaning of the term. This is one of the many proofs that
celibacy was not an obligation among the early British clergy. Patrick’s
father was a deacon in the church, a town counselor, a farmer, and a
husband. To the glory of God, it came to pass that, during his seven
years of slavery in Ireland, Patrick acquired the Irish form of the
Celtic language. This was of great value, because the fierce fighting
disposition of the pagan Irish, at that time was a barrier to the
Romans’ or Britons’ attempting missionary work across the channel on a
large scale. However, many of those previously carried off into
captivity must have been Christians who engaged themselves so earnestly
in converting their captors that considerable Christianity was found in
Ireland when, after his escape, Patrick dared to return to evangelize
the island.

It will be further noted in the quotation above
that he was taken into “captivity with many thousand men.” The seagoing
craft used in those days along the coasts of Ireland, called “coracles,”
were small vessels made by covering a wicker frame with hide or
leather. The problem involved in transporting many thousands of captives
by means of such small boats indicates that the raid must have been
made on a near-by coast, which is further testimony that his fatherland
was “the Britains.”

Patrick, like his Master of Galilee, was to
learn obedience through suffering. A great task awaited him. The
apostolic church had won a comparatively easy victory in her struggle
with a pagan world for three centuries. But an almost impossible task
awaited her when a compromising Christianity, enforcing its doctrines at
the point of the sword, had become the state religion of the Roman
Empire. It was an hour when a new line of leaders was needed. As the
struggle of free churches to live their lives without the domination of a
state clergy began, God was training Patrick.

While
considering the early life of this Christian leader, it is most
interesting to note what was happening in contemporary history.
Vigilantius was doing his work in southern France and in northern
Italy, or among the Latin peoples. Shortly before Patrick’s time the
empire at Constantinople had been under the rule of Constantine II, who
recoiled from accepting the extreme views on the Godhead, which had won
the vote under his father, Constantine the Great, in the first Council
of Nicaea. As will be related later, similar opposition to those extreme
views prevailed all over Europe. Patrick’s belief was that of the
opposition. Dr. Stokes writes: “The British churches of the fourth
century took the keenest interest in church controversies. They opposed
Arianism, but hesitated, like many others, about the use of the word
‘homoousion.’” (This word means “identity of substance.”) Thus Celtic
Christianity in the years of Patrick refused to accept this test term
and the conclusions to which the radical speculations were leading.

It is remarkable that in the time of Patrick, as later testimony from
Alphonse Mingana will point out, there were large groups of Christians
stretching all the way from the Euphrates to northwestern India.
Furthermore, in 411, when Patrick was at the height of his work, the
recognized head over the Church of the East at Seleucia, Persia,
consecrated a metropolitan administrator for China who must have had
many provincial directors under him. This indicates many Christian
churches in China in that age. Ambrose reported in 396 that Musaeus, an
Abyssinian church leader, had “traveled almost everywhere in the country
of the Seres.” Seres was the name for the Chinese. Truly, the age
in which Patrick labored saw stirring scenes throughout the world.

Both Isaac, supreme director, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, author and
theologian, were powerful leaders in the great Church of the East during
the period of Patrick’s ministry. The influence of the writings of
Theodore in molding Oriental Christianity for centuries and his signal
work in refuting the doctrines of Mithraism in the East, while Patrick
was winning his victories in the West, is of importance.